You have to hand it to Nintendo. The legacy Japanese studio never stops coming up with small, joyful ways to use its own hardware. Over the last two days, Nintendo has shown off a hidden feature the company itself probably didn’t even anticipate during development of the Switch 2: using the handheld’s built-in mic to talk to your games.
If there was one feature that seemed extra superfluous when we first reviewed the Nintendo Switch 2, it was GameChat. The feature uses the Switch 2’s built-in phone-hole microphone and camera connectivity to let you talk with friends during gameplay. It’s a feature built more for younger players who have all their mates’ friend codes and are forbidden by parents to use Discord. Nintendo has apparently figured out more uses for its mic, and they involve either humming to your handheld or talking directly to its cutest characters.
In Tuesday’s The Legend of Zelda-themed Nintendo Direct, Nintendo showed gamers how they can use the Switch 2’s mic to hum out the tunes used to play the ocarina in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. Game director Eiji Aonuma displayed this functionality by mumming Epona’s Song slightly off-key. The Switch 2 still recognized it and played the song on screen. The game seems to include a practice mode to practice your humming, just in case you can’t quite stay in tune. We’ll have to see for ourselves how accurate the song recognition is. Nintendo’s mic quality isn’t the best, but it may be better for note recognition than for listening to your friends.
Following its The Legend of Zelda direct, where it showed off its new Zelda-themed Switch 2, Nintendo then showed this feature in a different game, Pikmin 4 Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy. The rerelease includes the ability to talk directly to your small dog-like companion Oatchi, telling your mount to “rush” to have him charge ahead. A command like “go to work” will have Oatchi drag an item. The best part? Telling the doggo “good pup” will see Oatchi smile and wag its tail.
Nintendo says there are nine different commands that work in-game. In a more-realized version of this, players would be able to issue many more types of commands and see them all work. It’s really just the tip of the iceberg of what’s possible. I could imagine Nintendo could design games around the mic.
For now, the hardware feature is merely an extra. Nintendo showed off a small plastic ocarina it plans to sell in its Nintendo Store, which it promised should also work in-game. Nintendo partner company Hori also plans to sell a $50 electronic version with some of these songs preprogrammed, in case you didn’t want to actually learn a new instrument. Like its Joy-Con 2 mouse controls, it still feels like we’re scratching the surface of how weird Nintendo can get with its $500 handheld.
